«Oniri Islands»: a successful quest

About Tourmaline

The co-founders of Tourmaline Studio, Camille Attard and Marion Bareil met at Gobelins School of Design (Paris, France) where they studied interaction design and created a digital board game prototype. Over the years they kept experimenting in physical and digital gaming setups as Camille worked as a freelance game designer and Marion graduated from the HEAD School of Design in Geneva. From their mutual passion emerged Oniri Islands, a hybrid game using smartoys as game controllers on a tablet app. The game won several awards, leading to the creation of Tourmaline, an interactive studio crafting new kinds of games blending tangible and digital realms. They are specialized in hybrid products: connected objects, multi device setups and paper video games.

«Oniri Islands» is a cooperative adventure game for two players. By moving the smart toys on the tablet, the players embody Mina and Tim, two twin kids lost on a mysterious island, searching for their shadows. In their quest, they find animal masks, and by wearing them, they are empowered by magical skills. «Oniri Islands» draws inspiration from the lost boys from «Peter Pan» (JM Barrie), «The Lord of the Flies» (William Golding) and «Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter» (Astrid Lindgren). The scenario was written by Sabrina Calvo, former narrative designer at Ankama and writer of novels and short stories.

«Oniri Islands» was successfully funded by a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter and supported by Pro Helvetia’s Interactive Media Call for Projects. On 20 November 2018, it has been released on the App Store and Google Play.